


The Year that Never Was

by wildtrak



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ethical Dilemmas, Inappropriate Use of the Speed Force (The Flash TV 2014), M/M, Medical Experimentation, Medical Procedures, Not Beta Read, Questionable Physics, Slow Burn, Speed Force, Temporary Character Death, Time Loop, Time Shenanigans, but not that slow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-22 13:03:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22583257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildtrak/pseuds/wildtrak
Summary: After an experiment to stop time goes awry, Barry is trapped in a silent world where everything is stuck on pause. With no idea how to undo the mistake, Barry makes the dangerous decision to use one of the remaining two vials of an experimental serum to wake Oliver.Set during Flash 2x12, Canon divergent from Arrow 4x08.
Relationships: Barry Allen/Oliver Queen
Comments: 15
Kudos: 60





	The Year that Never Was

Harry had said that it might hurt. Barry can safely say that was the understatement of the century. The pain and shock is strong enough to feel on a molecular level—he must have had a seizure if the muscle aches, drool and tear tracks on his face are anything to go by.

Barry forces his eyes to focus on Harry’s face. He’s still looming with the syringe held aloft in one hand, so close that Barry can see the heavy lines around his eyes from stress and lack of sleep. But Harry’s not moving. Not even breathing.

Barry hurls himself upright and away from Harry’s frozen form, lurching to his feet on the side of the hospital bed. Black spots cloud his vision, and he nearly passes out again, but the feeling soon eases and he tries a few steps.

Cisco is still sitting where he was a moment ago (an hour ago?), leaning precariously back on two wheels of his office chair. His eyes are trained upwards, and mouth wide open as a green M&M hovers a foot and a half above his face. He’s also completely still, holding the perfect balance on the edge of potential disaster. 

It should be a moment for celebration, and Barry does feel a brief flare of hope. But any feeling of elation is quickly getting smothered by dread. As hard as he tries, he has no control over his new ability. 

Harry and Cisco hang in their immobile states, unaffected when Barry tries to draw them into his energy, and the computer terminal is completely unresponsive when Barry tries to open the Turtle project file. He mashes the keyboard, hammering the enter key until it cracks under his fingers, but the computer doesn’t even beep in protest.

He does everything short of clicking his heels three times, and yet the world around him remains resolutely set. 

Their plan might have hit a small snag, Barry concedes.

It sounded good on paper, developing a retrovirus for The Turtle’s powers that could give Barry a way to defeat Zoom. They had neither the time nor the resources for a proper trial, so when the computer modelling all looked good, Barry had said yes. 

In hindsight, he knows Harry rushed it through and Caitlin’s protests had fallen on preoccupied ears. But Barry understood the desire to do anything to keep your family safe, and he’d gambled that Harry’s intellect and perfectionism would make the risks acceptable. 

His own headspace has been filled with the compulsive need to do anything but think about Patty and everything that went wrong. In the days since she left to pursue her career far away from Central—and away from Barry more specifically—the sting of failure has been acute. After turning himself inside out to decide that he was serious about their relationship, only to watch it all go belly up anyway, has left him feeling more than a little hopeless.

So his recent decision-making hasn’t exactly been faultless. Still, the plan had seemed like the best idea they’d had in a long time. 

But standing here, alone, in a room full of other people who are all stuck in the same unending moment, panic starts to rise in his throat. 

First things first, he tests his speed. Barry zips across the lab, lighting cascading across his shoulders as easy as breathing. But the papers on Harry’s desk don’t so much as flutter, let alone fly onto the floor in his wake.

It’s weird and disconcerting, but the fact that the speed force is still working in his cells is enough to calm him a bit. The Turtle could only hold the time stops for a handful of minutes and his range was short, so Barry tries to stay positive. 

“This is only temporary,” he tells the room at large. No one responds. He writes a note on a post-it saying _everything is fine brb_ and sticks it to the lab gurney just in case.

Barry leaves Harry and Cisco to it, and ventures further out into the hallway. 

* * *

Barry discovers fairly quickly that his predicament may be worse than originally thought. 

After an unexpected detour into the bathroom to vomit his guts up after his body gives a particularly violent objection to his new ability, the toilet stubbornly refuses to flush no matter how many times he waves his hand over the auto-flush. He smacks himself in the forehead in dismay when the auto-handwash also doesn’t work. 

Fortunately, he finds a fridge full of bottled water in the kitchen, and manages to brush his teeth without the cooperation of the electric switches in all of the taps. He tables the toilet flushing issue for later. 

In desperate need of cheering up after that unfortunate discovery, Barry takes a detour outside to Jitters. As luck would have it, someone is being handed a brand new cup of Flash coffee at the table by the front door. He drops the cash on the benchtop to cover the drink, and tries to drink the entire cup in one go, heedless of the burning hot liquid. It scalds his tongue, and there’s a strange sticky quality to the coffee that thwarts him from swallowing the rest. He has to resort to drinking it with a straw, but eventually he feels caffeinated enough to go back to the lab and brainstorm for ideas. 

He grabs a bagel as an afterthought, and heads back out onto the street. 

Ordinarily, he would just speed back to the lab without so much as a backwards glance at the mundane minutiae of life going on around him in Central City. But a bit more reconnaissance on the effects of Harry’s experiment might be helpful in some way, so he sets off at a moderate pace down the sidewalk. 

A few blocks pass before he notices anything peculiar or worth investigating. There are people everywhere in the early evening peak hour, all paused mid-conversation or mid-argument, or in one case, mid-car-accident. Barry carefully redirects the second car away from the first so they’ll harmlessly pass each other instead of colliding head on. 

The man in the second car is on the wrong side of the road, and he’s not even aware of the impending catastrophe because he’s looking down at his phone as he types out a text. Barry plucks the phone out of his hand and locks it in the glove compartment, before scribbling a note on an old receipt that says, “don’t text and drive, dickhead” on it, and puts it in the guy’s lap. 

He moves the remaining pedestrians out of harm’s way, trying to foresee any other possible casualties. Satisfied that no one will die, he carries on, moving further into the heart of the city. 

Barry swings by the CCPD where things are their usual chaotic mess as everyone tries to pack up and get home on time for once. Captain Singh is slumped over in his chair, looking tired and guilty, worse than Barry has seen in a while. A hamburger sits abandoned, half-eaten on the desk beside him, and his phone is lit up with an incoming text. 

Barry resists the urge to snoop further, but he does swap the hamburger with his uneaten salad bagel. Imagining the look of confused rage on Singh’s face is enough to cheer him up a bit. 

It’s a strange feeling, to be watching the world this way. Barry’s used to life seeming slow when he’s got the adrenaline rush and the speedforce flowing through his veins. But this is different. There’s no urgency, no excitement. It’s like being in a museum filled with wax figures, all posed and dressed to look real, but there’s just something off. 

Barry leaves the precinct, before the uncanny feeling can disturb him further, and takes a shortcut back to the lab. His field trip hasn’t yielded any particularly useful clues, apart from confirming that the effects are widespread, and that no one seems immune. 

He needs to make a plan, and thought it pains him to admit it, he needs help. 

* * *

Barry stares at the list in front of him, with all the names of his friends, and neat pros and cons column diligently filled out with aggregated scores at the end. He’s probably overthinking it, but the weight of this kind of choice has pushed him to be more considered than he has recently been. He can’t risk testing the serum on Harry directly when it is designed specifically for metas, but if he wants any chance of figuring out how to restart time, he will need Harry’s help. 

He’s ninety-eight percent sure the serum won’t kill whoever he gives it to, but Barry can’t say that there’s no doubt lurking in his subconscious. Objectivity has never been his strong suit, and the list was supposed to help with that. But seeing the facts and making the call are two different things. 

Barry speeds out to the hospital for a moment to look in on the Wests before he decides. The hallways are filled with people, all paused mid-motion. There are tired-looking nurses and a waiting room full of bored people. An expectant mother is paused mid-scream as a man, who Barry assumes is her husband, grips her hand for dear life. He passes them all by, trying to ignore the hopeless feeling he gets when he’s in a crowd of people. 

He feels a bit guilty for not being there for Iris and Joe, for being distracted by Harry’s personal vendetta at a time when they’re all hurting so much. But looking at them anew, with the benefit of some time and distance from it all, Barry can’t see where he would fit. It’s an uncomfortable realisation, but he feels useless here. 

He hugs Joe where he stands in the hall, looking pensively out the window and frozen while he waits for Iris. It’s clear in the sad set of his brow and reddened eyes that Joe’s mind is on the two people in the adjacent room, so Barry leaves him be. 

Iris is just as she was, sitting by Francine’s bedside, a watery but broad smile on her face and tears tracked halfway down her cheeks. She’s still paused in her moment of forgiveness. Iris looks beautiful like that, despite the puffiness in her face and the desperation that underlies the hope. 

Barry pulls a chair over for himself anyway, and sits with them for a while. His intrusion will go unnoticed when everything is back to normal, but for now he can make believe that his presence is wanted. He tells Iris about his dilemma, wishing and praying that for just a minute she’ll respond, to dispense some of her patented Barry-proof advice. She knows him so well, and always helps him see things the right way—as she’s done since they were kids. 

Eventually her silence drives him out of the room and back to Star Labs. He returns to the cortex, list clutched in his hand and no closer to a decision.

Joe is a similar age to Harry, similar medical history and is as human as it gets. Barry would love nothing more than to have Joe’s steady presence around. But with everything that’s happening with Iris’s mother and Wally, he knows it would be selfish to drag Joe into it. Joe is safer where he is, and for now he and Iris have an endless moment to spend with Francine. 

Although it’s not in the scientific spirit of why he made the list in the first place, Barry draws a line through Joe’s name. He does the same with Iris, so that he won’t be tempted to selfishness. 

Caitlin should objectively be at the top of the list, and if anything needs to be modified in the serum she’s the only choice. Barry walks over to where she is standing, hands outstretched to receive the cup of coffee Jay is pushing towards her. 

There is an unguarded smile on her face, one that Barry hasn’t seen much of in the last few years. She’s lost so much already, and the sight of her happy and optimistic again nags at him. Ronnie was a huge loss that could only be laid at Barry’s feet, and with the scales already tipped so far Barry can’t make himself hurt her again. He thinks about what will happen when she wakes. The smile will be gone and it will be his fault.

He crosses her name off too. She’s the wrong blood type anyway. 

It leaves him with only one real contender and when Barry stares at the heavier print and underlining on the name, he knows it’s his only choice. 

Oliver Queen is a normal human, shares Harry’s blood type and several other medically significant factors. He’s also bound by an agreement of sorts, one that Barry had never wanted to have to enact. But this scenario certainly counts, even though it probably wasn’t what either of them had in mind when they discussed it. 

Besides, it’s not like this will be the first dubious medical procedure he’s performed on Oliver, he tells himself. There’s precedent. 

Barry leaves for Star City before he can change his mind. 

* * *

Barry arrives outside Verdant in the perpetual darkness of an unending night. The strobe lights from within stick out like spears of color from the open doorway at the front of the club. Barry weaves around a crowd of fashionable girls in high heels and glossy makeup, and through the throng of dancers on the dance floor, all paused with rapturous expressions on their faces. 

Thea and Roy are behind the bar, and Roy is watching Thea with rapt attention—she has three shot glasses in the air in front of her and a easy-pour bottle of vodka in one hand. There is a line of drinks already poured across the top of the bar and a group of enthralled frat-boys all looking at her. 

The busy space is uncomfortable to move through for Barry. The waves of sound from the bass speakers make him feel like he’s swimming underwater while a cruise ship propeller chugs around next to his head. Even though the sound isn’t moving, he is, and the doppler effect that is usually dampened by the speedforce just batters his eardrums, so he makes a short speedrun for the stairwell that will take him down to the Arrow cave. 

Barry hasn’t seen him since their last team up, but he can still remember the warmth of Oliver’s arms around his shoulders when he went in for a totally platonic bro-hug—it felt good in a way that Barry hadn’t wanted to examine in the moment. 

The more time he spends with Oliver, the more attached he finds himself getting, which considering their respective careers, doesn’t seem prudent. But now that another of his relationships is lost because he can’t be honest, he feels even more connected to their shared double life—and Oliver, who has always held him at arm’s length, seems to be getting used to a closer proximity too. 

When Barry lands at the bottom of the stairwell, Oliver is standing in the middle of the workout mat, arms at his sides and a meditative expression on his face. His eyes are closed, as though he’s been paused mid-inhale as he gets ready to move. The salmon ladder is above him, with the bar settled on the lowest rung, waiting for him to leap up and start his ascent. 

Inconveniently for Barry’s sense of propriety, he isn’t wearing a shirt. “Seriously?” he asks Oliver, and the empty room in general—but the usual smug response isn’t forthcoming. He wraps his arms around Oliver’s midsection anyway, and lets the speedforce carry them back to Central City, before he can let his misgivings talk him out of it. 

* * *

He deposits Oliver’s deadweight body onto the bed in the Lab, and rearranges the room so Harry is standing in the opposite corner. Barry carefully pries the injector out of Harry’s hand and pulls the empty cartridge out, before reloading it with a fresh dose out of the fridge. 

Barry isn’t usually squeamish (several years of poking and prodding at the various corpses he’s encountered in the line of duty has cured that), but looking down at Oliver’s peaceful expression makes him pause. To actually get the serum where it needs to go in Oliver’s brain, he will have to put the needle through his skull. For a speedster, it only takes a moment to heal something so trivial, but he’s not sure how a regular human will react. But it’s too late to back out now, and the oppressive silence of the world around him is starting to grate. 

He tries not to think about the odds of failure, or all the possible negative reactions, or what Oliver will think of him for choosing to do this. They have an agreement, but Barry’s feelings on the matter have been conflicted in the long months since they shook hands on a darkened rooftop. He hadn’t been sure at the time that Oliver’s thinking was clear-headed, and the archer’s propensity for unnecessary self-sacrifice made Barry worry about what motivated the promise to always be the one Barry should call on. 

After his run-in with Roy Bivolo, Barry had grudgingly agreed that Oliver was right about his tendencies to rush in without thinking. But he’s thought about this carefully, considered all the angles and has come to the only logical conclusion. 

Oliver will certainly berate him for putting them both in this position—he is unlikely to be swayed by Harry’s arguments about defeating Zoom being worth the risk, considering what’s happened. But he’ll understand why Barry has chosen him, and even if he’s angry, it will be worth it to at least have someone else to make noise and take up space and actually bring some life back into the world. As long as the serum doesn’t kill him first.

Barry focuses instead on the tiny patch of skin on Oliver’s forehead. He’s done the calculations and looked at Caitlin’s notes a hundred times, and his own medical training tells him he’s positioned the device correctly, but there is still an undercurrent of doubt. He steadies his hand, and depresses the trigger, wincing at the snicking sound as the needle pierces the skin and bone. Oliver has a hard head, and he has to press firmly. 

The serum squeezes out of the injector slowly, moving directly into the frontal lobe where it should take effect. Oliver’s non-meta status won’t allow him to use the powers actively, but Barry is hoping it will at least make him immune to their effects. 

Barry retracts the needle and sticks a small plaster to the front of Oliver’s head, though there is barely a smear of blood with Oliver’s cardio-pulmonary system on pause. He has no idea how long it will take, or even if it will work, so Barry pulls up a chair and waits.

It starts as a strange disturbance in the air around Oliver’s body. Everything else is so still that Barry notices it immediately. Oliver’s eyes start to move under closed eyelids, and tremors and twitches start at his extremities. All of a sudden, Oliver’s eyes snap open and he gulps in a desperate breath. 

“Barry, what the hell?” He grabs Barry’s hand with the injector, and a betrayed look crosses his face. But then his eyes are rolling back into his head and the seizures start. Barry’s increased strength is no match for Oliver’s brute force, and all he can do is try and keep Oliver from falling off the bed headfirst as the serum ravages through his system. 

Just when Barry’s thoughts start to spiral down a rabbit hole about Oliver’s possible brain damage or death, the seizures stop. Oliver slumps back onto the bed, eyes and nose streaming and a slightly sick greenish tinge to his complexion. 

“Oliver? Can you hear me?” He gently brushes one hand over Oliver’s shoulder, having learned his lesson once before about being too close when Oliver has woken up after a stint of unconsciousness. Last time he hadn’t had speedforce healing, and the ring of bruises around his neck had been hard to conceal from his law-enforcement colleagues and family. Getting choked out was not a sexy thing for him—definitely not after a few years on the job as a superhero—but that experience with Oliver did leave a certain impression on him if he’s being honest. 

Now, Oliver just growls at him and bats Barry’s hand away. Bleary eyes drop open with great reluctance, and Barry waves at him in a way he hopes is encouraging. 

“Barry, what’s going on? And why am I in your lab?” Oliver’s eyes track Barry’s movements with sluggish confusion.

“Hey Oliver, how are you doing?” Barry digs one of the newer recipe energy bars out of the cupboard and gives it to Oliver, who just blinks at him.

“Everything sounds weird, and you keep speeding around and I can’t see you properly.” Oliver waves his own hand in front of his face with an expression of irritated fascination. 

“Oh, crap. Sorry man, I didn’t even think of that. It will get better soon,” Barry tells him, though he’s not all that confident that Oliver’s perception will improve. His brain will need to adapt itself to sensory processing at different speeds, and while it’s easy for a speedster, Oliver is only human. 

“It’s fine. I’ll manage.” Oliver pushes himself off the bed before Barry can stop him—superspeed or not—and lurches across the room on unsteady legs. As he walks, his balance starts to stabilise and by the time he’s turned around, Barry stops hovering at his elbow and lets him walk over to where Harry is standing. 

“So you probably have some questions…” Barry sits down on the edge of the now-vacant lab bed. 

“Just one.” Oliver turns around with his usual fluid grace, though Barry can see his eyes widen for a moment as if the ground has shifted under his feet. “What did you do?” He raises his chin and fixes Barry with a glare. 

“You look like you’re not in the mood for the long version, so I’ll keep it short,” Barry says, trying not to wince as Oliver’s eyes narrow. “Basically, we were looking for a way to beat Zoom, so we tried adapting the abilities of a meta called The Turtle so we could slow time. We thought it might give us an edge in our next confrontation.” 

“Who’s we?” Oliver asks, eyes tracking past Harry and landing on Cisco, who is still poised on his chair, M&M no closer to his mouth than it was a few days earlier. 

“Harry mostly—he really wants to get his daughter back, which is understandable.” 

“And yet, once again, something has gone wrong,” Oliver finishes for him in a tone that Barry would characterize as pissy, if he was a braver man than he is. 

“I don’t know why, but for some reason everyone seems stuck. Time is still passing, I think, only it mustn’t be moving normally for anyone here because Cisco has been waiting for that candy to land for almost a week now. The laws of physics are kind of broken.” Oliver moves closer to Cisco, and inspects the floating chocolate with a wary expression. Cisco tips minutely further backwards when Oliver touches his forehead with his fingers. 

“So what’s your plan? I am assuming you have one?” Barry tries not to bristle at the patronizing tone as Oliver turns to face him, arms crossed. 

“I need to wake Harry up. He’ll know what to do,” Barry says, and picks up the injector so he can remove the now empty serum cartridge. He dumps the used needle nib in the sharps bin and waits for Oliver to speak.

“Right, and I’m here because?” Barry sucks in a breath, not prepared for the directness of Oliver’s question. He had hoped that Oliver wouldn’t ask, what with the whole super-hero bro-code that they are supposed to share—but Oliver just looks expectantly at him.

“I needed a test subject. I can’t risk killing Harry with a serum meant for metas without testing it first. So I chose you,” Barry finishes softly, not quite able to force his eyes up to meet Oliver’s gaze. It’s not the only reason he chose Oliver, but now there really isn’t time for him to try and untangle the mess that is his less-than-healthy attachment. 

“I see.” Oliver doesn’t say anything further. He picks up the power-bar and takes a bite, chewing methodically until the whole thing is gone.

“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.” Barry says, as Oliver turns his back and moves to leave. 

“Not now, Barry,” Oliver growls and stalks away. 

Barry gives him his space, letting Oliver walk it off in the circular hallways of Star Labs until he’s ready to talk. Oliver seems to be taking it better than Barry expected, but then again they haven’t really talked about it in any real depth, and Oliver is the master of bottling his emotions up to be explosively disgorged at a later date. 

So Barry shadows him but doesn’t engage, and lets Oliver get used to interacting with a world that no longer obeys the familiar laws of physics. Barry is really not looking forward to having to explain how bathrooms don’t work, or how the water pipes in the shower don’t work, or the coffee machine or any number of other modern conveniences that simply don’t exist in their world now. 

“Barry,” he isn’t proud of how he jumps at the sound of Oliver’s gravelly voice as it reaches him from the darkened room of the central cortex, "I know this is going to sound a little bit crazy, but can we bring the team here? My team, that is."

Oliver is pacing back and forth in the same ten feet of space he was when Barry left him about an hour earlier to do a scout through the meta wing at Iron Heights looking for anyone else unaffected.

Oliver’s agitation has been building and building and Barry’s actually starting to worry. He never lets much unchecked emotion show through under normal circumstances (baseline grumpiness aside), and although Oliver seems pissed off most of the time, this is different.

"It’s not crazy at all. I’ll find them," Barry promises. It might be awkward and heavy-going to lug Dig all the way from Star City, but he managed with Oliver so he can do it again.

Oliver looks relieved, and the tension between them eases slightly.

"Thanks," he says, a little wooden still. "I’m just a little concerned - they’re vulnerable like this."

Barry nods and doesn’t press him for more even though it’s not exactly rational considering their predicament. Barry misses his team tremendously too, and they’re all here, just not _here_. But if bringing Oliver’s team to Central City can mend at least a bit of the strain between them, then it’s worth it.

It takes him a while to find Diggle, who is sitting in the front seat of his van at the petrol station near Verdant. Barry carries him carefully across the distance between Star City and Central, and sets him up on an office chair in the lab, putting a small trash can within easy reach. 

When Barry returns to Star City looking for Felicity, it gets a bit complicated. She’s not in the Arrow Cave, nor is she in her apartment. Oliver had just grunted and thrown up his hands when Barry had asked him where everyone will be, so he’s forced to do some actual detective work. 

Felicity’s assistant’s desk finally yields a clue, with a note to make a reservation for two at one of the more expensive restaurants in town. It’s evidently not for Oliver—despite being inconvenienced by vigilante duties at the last minute a lot of the time, he doesn’t tend to forget social engagements entirely. 

Since the DNA test incident, as Barry has taken to calling it in his mind, Felicity has been somewhat frosty even with him for his part in it. While it was Oliver who had been keeping secrets, Barry has been found guilty by association. They’re on a break, or so Oliver told him, but what that actually means he’s not too sure. 

So that leaves only one other possibility. Barry goes to the restaurant on the off-chance they’re early for their reservation, but the place hasn’t even opened for dinner service. He speeds across to Palmer technologies with a growing feeling of dread. He has to phase through the doors to get in—the smart building locks and automated lifts are no help—but soon enough he’s standing in the hall outside a vast executive office. 

Ray’s office is locked, and Barry hesitates. There is probably a good reason why the door is locked, and Barry really shouldn’t invade their privacy, he knows. But appeasing Oliver’s paranoid tendencies will go a long way to making Barry’s own life easier, so he’s torn. 

Despite their more recent tension, he’s always kept in touch with Felicity, even though he knows it bothers Oliver for some bizarre reason. So he isn’t surprised when he phases through the door to find Felicity and Ray together. It’s immediately awkwardly obvious that he can’t do anything about it, and that Felicity will most certainly be staying in Star City, no matter what Oliver says. 

But outright telling Oliver why he can’t bring Felicity to Central is not a conversation he’s going to enjoy. He backs out of the room, leaving Felicity and Ray to their activities, and starts the run back home. 

He takes the long way back, and considers how he can break it to Oliver that Felicity’s not coming with them. Telling Oliver he couldn’t find her will only make him worry, but telling him the truth will be salting the wound. 

Fortunately Barry is saved by the fact that Oliver is (in some areas at least) not an idiot. 

“No Felicity?” He asks carefully, when Barry returns empty handed.

“No Felicity. She’s safe, I promise.” 

“Too busy fucking Ray Palmer again, I guess?” Oliver says, and closes his eyes with a pinched frown. 

“I’m sorry Ollie,” Barry starts, but Oliver just waves him off.

“It’s fine, they’ve been back together for a while now. I’m trying to be supportive,” he says, rubbing at tired eyes. Oliver won’t outwardly complain, but Barry can tell he’s still having trouble with his vision. 

“Good job there, big guy. I almost believed that,” Barry says, softening the blow with a grin. 

“Well, at least I didn’t have to see it with my own eyes. Felicity will be furious when she finds out what you saw.” 

“Hey, don’t blame me! It was your idea!” Barry says, indignant and still feeling the heat in his face from the memory what he’s seen and now can’t unsee. He means it as a joke, but Oliver’s face remains closed off and remote.

“I know,” Oliver says, and pushes himself off the bench, leaving Barry alone in the lab with his expanding collection of inanimate friends. 

“Well, that could have gone better,” Barry tells Cisco, Dig and Harry, and they don’t disagree. 

* * *

Barry doesn’t really see Oliver for what seems like a few days after that, though it’s hard to hide when you’re the only living, breathing and moving thing in the building. He’s prepared to let Oliver sulk for as long as it takes. 

He is yet to figure out a method for keeping time that isn’t just counting Mississippi's out loud, but by his best guess they’ve been sleeping for about six hours every twelve hours, though Barry has noticed Oliver napping at random times. The sun hasn’t risen again since time stopped and the absence of sunlight is getting tedious.

In the meantime, Barry whiles away the hours reading physics textbooks and doodling in the margins, or speeding around the city in search of a fresh cup of coffee now that the supply at Jitters has been exhausted. He leaves one out for Oliver each day—just in case—and though he never sees him take it, the cup is always missing by what Barry has arbitrarily called ‘the afternoon’.

He also discovers that he has no way to access the time-vault, so his plan to check in with Gideon is rudely thwarted by the door refusing to open. 

Oliver himself has finally started to venture outside, taking day trips on a stolen bicycle out of the industrial precinct and closer into the city. Barry keeps tabs on him just in case, but lets Oliver explore and test the world around him without interfering if he can avoid it. Barry can feel the palpable disappointment when Oliver tries shooting an arrow for the first time, and the projectile goes nowhere.

Getting clean is also still a production, but Barry has to hand it to Oliver for discovering that there is a municipal swimming pool just down the road which is heated, so Barry no longer has to resort to taking a careful dip in the Star Labs water tanks or the frigid water of the bay. They still have to rinse off in one of the running showers to get rid of the chlorine smell, but it’s still a vast improvement.

It’s Oliver who eventually breaks their detent by turning up to the aquatic center while Barry is already there. Barry has already cleared the pool of all the other people, because even though it’s ridiculous, he’s worried someone might accidentally drown while they’re stuck in the time stop. 

Oliver greets him with a firm nod, which Barry matches before turning his back when Oliver reaches for the hem of his t-shirt. The sound of his clothes being removed is loud in the cavernous space, but Barry keeps his eyes on the unmoving wall clock until Oliver drops into the shallow end a few lanes across from him. 

They are careful not to go too deep because the water doesn’t feel like a normal swimming pool. It’s not as bad as getting stuck in a non-Newtonian fluid like quicksand, but while Barry is safe enough, Oliver drowning is not something he wants to even think about. 

Although it’s a childish move, Barry tries to send a small wave over at Oliver, but it just deforms the surface and travels no further than a few feet. He pouts in disappointment, and Oliver barks out a laugh. 

“How are you feeling?” Barry asks, emboldened by Oliver’s smile. 

“I’m adapting,” Oliver replies, and dunks his head under the water before re-emerging. Barry nearly chokes on his own spit for a minute when Oliver stands up in all his unclothed glory, but he masks it by dunking himself underwater in a rush. It’s not like he hasn’t seen it all before, he reasons, but he still takes the opportunity to stay under a bit longer and school his expression into something more nonchalant.

Barry figures he looks more like a drowned rat when he comes back up for air, but Oliver has turned away and is busy washing his hair, so there is only a handful of apathetic onlookers in the crowd to see him. They seem to be more interested in their phones, so it’s not much of a confidence boost. In his defence, they don’t seem particularly moved by the display of muscle and manly scars that’s going on in the adjacent lane either. Barry sighs and goes about his own routine.

“Have you made any progress?” Oliver’s voice startles him when it comes from much closer than he expects. Barry swears at the sting as he accidentally smears shampoo in one eye, and then nearly expires completely when he realises Oliver is not wearing anything at all. 

“Uh, yeah. I think I have an idea, but I need to uh,” Barry casts about in his memory for what his idea is, but his brain won’t supply it.

“You were muttering something about the time-vault this morning?”

“Yes! The time vault,” Barry clings to the words like a life-preserver, “I can’t get in, but I was thinking if I had the tachyon enhancer I could go back in time and stop Harry from injecting me.” 

“Can you make another one?” Oliver frowns, and leans back against the lane ropes. Barry tries to ignore him, and focuses on washing his own arms instead.

“Cisco or Harry could, but I’m no engineer. And anyway, the specs are all on the computer, which we can’t access.” 

“So we’re back to square one, then.” Oliver returns to his side of the pool and gets out, and Barry looks back up at him once a towel is safely secured around his waist. 

“Not entirely, but I need to figure out how to get into the vault.” 

“You’re smart Bear, you’ll figure it out. You might want to rinse that out at some point,” Oliver points to his hair which is still covered in suds, and gives him a mock salute as he walks away, leaving Barry to recover the shreds of his dignity alone.

It takes him a long time to get the soap out of his hair and to find some clean water to rinse in, but when he gets back to Star Labs, he’s feeling a bit more refreshed.

Later, he finds Oliver reclining on a sofa in the common space off the main lab, reading a physics textbook and tapping his foot against the floor in a distracted rhythm. Ordinarily, Barry would leave him alone, but his own crushing loneliness pushes him through the doorway until he’s sitting down next to Oliver on the couch. 

Oliver keeps tapping away, until he notices Barry watching him. He puts the book down, and crosses his arms.

“I’m not going to ask anything stupid like ‘are you okay’, but…” Barry does a quick inventory of Oliver’s appearance. He’s as still as a statue, and glaring in Barry’s direction, as though he can will Barry to shut up with the power of his mind. But then, Oliver surprises him. 

"I keep feeling like I need to make noise,” he says, expression uncomfortable. “I'm used to solitude and seclusion, but even on Lian Yu, there was the wind in the trees and the sounds of animals. Here there's just nothing."

Barry latches onto the conversation with an undignified amount of desperation. He’s always been a social creature, and being stuck here with the human equivalent of a brick wall has been an unexpected challenge.

"It can be pretty disorienting,” Barry agrees. “It's like this in the speed force too, and your ears start to ring after a while."

"I guess I just got so used to the constant pulse of the bass through the roof from Verdant. I actually miss music," Oliver admits, bracing for Barry to mock him.

Once the shock of the admission passes, instead of making fun of him as Oliver expects, Barry lets out a whoop of excitement. 

"What kind of music do you like? No, wait. Don't tell me! I have an idea." Barry darts out of the room, and is back in a second with a piece of paper and a pencil.

"Barry," Oliver's voice carries a warning note.

"You're an elder millennial, so that narrows it down a bit." Barry starts scribbling on the page, ignoring Oliver's affronted glare at the jibe about his age. “And there was a big chunk of time you missed when you were on the island so...” Barry finishes writing with a flourish.

"What are you doing?" Oliver tries to snatch the paper out of Barry's hands, but Barry moves out of range and his fingers close around empty air.

"Well, we don't have Spotify, so I'm making you a playlist of all the 90s emo rock I can remember. I'm a great singer Ollie!" Barry says to forestall the inevitable complaints. "Any song you want to hear, just ask and I'll sing it for you. Consider me your own personal ipod," Barry grins and hands over the list. ”Feel free to add anything I’ve missed, and you can teach it to me.”

“What makes you think I like emo rock,” Oliver scowls, but Barry doesn’t offer a counter argument. Some things, he thinks, are just obvious. As Oliver scans down the page, Barry can see him almost nodding in approval, in spite of himself. 

Oliver's eyebrows reach heretofore uncharted heights when he gets to the last song on the list.

"It's a classic, and don't pretend you didn't listen to that song all the time when it came out."

Barry hums the opening strains of Nine Inch Nails' Closer, and Oliver's elevated eyebrows dare him to continue.

“Start at number five, and we’ll see,” Oliver acquiesces, and rests back on the couch. He picks up his book and returns to reading, leaving Barry to flounder for a moment.

Barry clears his throat, humming a bit to himself to find the right pitch, before he finds the words. The first verse floats out of him, perfectly in tune and softly melodic. And when he gets to the chorus, he’s pleased to hear a deeper baritone joins in.

“I don’t ever want to feel, like I did that day...”

And so they sing, and Oliver actually laughs when Barry drops the rap in over the top of Aerosmith’s Dream On. Any shame he might have had is gone once he gets Oliver to smile, even if it’s a horrified or put-upon smile. 

Sometimes Barry forgets the lyrics, but with no access to google he just makes them up. Oliver has had to resort to breaking into nearby apartments in search of CD inserts that will prove him right, but 90s alternative is proving surprisingly unpopular with Central City residents.

Oliver is subjected to misheard lyrical atrocities and Barry's wild reinterpretations, but the noise is enough to drown out the ringing silence that has pervaded the cortex since the whole experiment began. 

A few day cycles later, Oliver looks almost happy when he returns from his run around the city. He drops the collection of food onto the lab table with little concern, and reaches carefully into his backpack to unearth an ancient-looking camera.

"It’s an old Polaroid," he says with uncharacteristic cheer as he gently expands the frame into its operational shape. "Do you think it might work?"

"Probably not, I mean, it’s old as shit and in here nothing fucking works so..." Barry throws the screwdriver he’s holding back into the toolbox with no small amount of frustration, and swipes a hand at the hair getting in his eyes.

Barry doesn’t catch the look on Oliver’s face because he’s already turned away by the time he looks up. But if Barry has learned anything recently it’s that the set of Oliver’s shoulders can reliably indicate his mood. His shoulders are disappointed again. Barry sighs.

"Hey," he says softly, "maybe it will work. You should at least give it a try?" Barry steps away from the old prototype enhancing device he’s tinkering with and picks up the camera from where Oliver has discarded it on the instrument table.

"These old cameras are mostly mechanical, so we might be able to get it to trigger the exposure mechanism. The rest is just a chemical reaction that creates the picture in the cartridge." Barry pushes the camera into Oliver’s hands again.

"Besides," he continues, "someone ought to document all this somehow. Cisco is always saying—pics or it didn’t happen—and they’re not going to believe us when things go back to normal." 

It takes a moment, but Oliver eventually matches his smile with a wry grin, and puts the viewfinder up to his eye.

Barry flashes backwards to pose next to the partially modified suit, grinning widely as Oliver frames the shot and clicks the button. There’s a few whirs and ticks from inside the box, and the cartridge is ejected.

Oliver holds it up expectantly, but the film remains stubbornly undeveloped.

"Guess not." He frowns at the blank frame.

"It’s probably the time distortion field," Barry says and flashes back to Oliver’s side. "It might be stopping the chemical reaction. I’m sorry Ollie." Barry cuffs him lightly on the arm.

"Worth a try," he replies and drops the empty polaroid and the camera with even less care than he gave their groceries.

"Hey, I still think you should use it," Barry tells him, not wanting to kill the brief moment of happiness Oliver has shown.

"Even if we never get to see the pictures?"

"When this is all over, maybe we will get to see them. It could still work, just on a delay." Barry risks resting both hands on Oliver"s shoulders and holds his gaze.

Oliver just nods, but doesn’t immediately shake Barry’s hands off him. Barry lets him go before he can pull away, and tries not to read too much into the way Oliver seems to sway towards him as he goes.

Having something to occupy Oliver while Barry works in the lab would be best for both of them, Barry decides.


End file.
